Cocktail Confessions

It’s pointed out to me on occassion that my job exists solely based on the fact that others are morons, and we live in a society today where people like their hands to be held.

Whether we now live in a collective culture fo complacency or laziness, people call support services for the likes of all things.  And by that I also mean, they call for the obvious or just call because they jsut can’t seem to be bothered by using their own brain and the common sense that should go along with it.

Occassionaly there are those news stories where someone (usually in low income or urban settings) will call 9-1-1 to report that their fast food order was wrong, that the cheeseburger in fact had no cheese, or the window attendant forgot to place ketchup in the bag.

But stupidity and laziness isn’ just confined to fast food establishments and to those that believe WalMart is just this side of Heaven’s pearly gates.  No, stupidity knows no boundries or socio-economic classes.  Where there are humans, there is eventually a lack of perception, self-awareness, or thought at some random time.

I work at a techinical company.  I will even go as far as to say my compnay ‘manufactures’ technical equipment.  We have engineers, developers, copy writers, quality assurance inspectors, etc., that we apparantly pay large sums of money to, in hopes that they will design a sustainable product to be aptly sold in the market place for a return that will keep us all employed and keep the company growing.  The aforementioned people are also some of the worst abusers of common sense and I often wonder what our screening process is.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m no Albert Einstein, but I do take pause on occassion to note what I am doing prior to calling the Help Desk.  So what prompted my little tirade today?  Well, today I’ve been on the receiving end of a bevy of questionable calls:

“The video conferencing machine is not working properly.  We can’t see anything on the screen?”

Is the TV and/or monitor on?  No?  Go ahead and turn it on please.

“You guys are blocking the Internet.  I can’t check anything including my email.

Please look in the back of your PC.  Do you see green/amber lights? No? Is the ethernet cable plugged in? No?  Go ahead and plug that in please.

“My phone isn’t working.  I can’t make any calls.”

You do realize you just called me, right?  And you can hear me?  Good.  I can hear you.  Case solved.

“I just turned on the printer in my department.”

Er…okay?  Was there something wrong?  No?  Okay, in that case I’m very proud.  Nice job on toggling the power switch. 

“The printer just stopped printing mid -ob.  There is a red light on next to the paper tray.”

Please add more paper to the empty tray.

“The laser pointer in the main conference room is not lighting up when I hold the button down.  It generally always works, but we noticed it’s been acting sporadic lately.”

Have you checked the batteries?  Perhaps you should try changing them since it’s been in use for over a year.

I can’t install this software I just bought.  It’s says Windows XP on the box and I have a Microsoft computer.

But our company runs Window 2000.

I could go on and on with much more involved and ludicrous tales.  I picked the easiest ones here to type, but it amazes me how many of these guys are in fact engineers, or people who have worked here for years (as if we in IT just decided to come in one day and change ‘everything’ overnight that we knew was going to directly affect one random person and its a conspiracy on our behalf to not tell anyone.  Yeah, because we are that bored and we all collectively decided together that we all wanted to take these calls today as a challenge to validate our mental stability.

Yes, this is indeed a ‘real’ device.  I don’t have the time or effort or even the absurd level of creativity to have photo-shopped this myself.  However, our vertically challenged friends from the land of the rising sun continually surprise us in their masterful inventions of the inane have given the world it’s newest overpriced trinket: The Watermelon Cart,

Yes, for roughly 19,950 yen, or $231 for us yanks you to can buy an exclusive watermelon cooling crad to transport your melon from the store to your next beach bbq or family picnic.  Perhaps the tried and true method of USING YOUR ARMS has suddenly become passe or too hard?

No, just what these rich bastards with too much money in their pockety need, a portable baby cart for a fricken melon.  Thank goodness it is exclusively manufactured and sold only in Japan.  Can you imagine the guffaws and remarks one would get here if you were seen pusing around a single melon in a space aged design push cart with a dome?  But then again, I suppose the likes of the Housewives of Orange County (actually , Atlanta) would probably parade this around.  Can you imagine being the schmoe your wife has directed into performing the walk of shame dragging this contraption to the family reunion?  I’d never live it down.

You know the world is running out of things to invent and design when Japan, the proud creators of used panty vending machines, are now snubbing the faces of sub-saharan tribespeople with temperature controlled melon carts.

I recently had the unfortunate displeasure of being very disappointed by my metro-sexual inspired frozen lunch one day at work.  In a continual effort to help reduce my overall costs with the benefit of achieving and possibly maintaining a healthier weight, I opted to start taking more brown bag lunches to work. 

Believe me, I don’t stay at work during my lunch break because it’s a great place to hang out and pick up chicks.  Heck, barely half the employees at the company I work for can barely speak English as it is (*ICE, please make note of this).  No, it’s both an unfortunate and unfavorable decision on my part to help save some money and maintaining portion control.  I’ve been getting a little sick of homemade sandwiches and nuking cans of watered down soup, so on my last visit to the grocery store I noticed that many of the Healthy Choice frozen entree’s were on sale.  Basically, I could get 2 frozen meals at a soup kitchen deal of a price at $5.00.  For those that are math challenged, (and here in CA, according to most recent state statistics, that would be at least half of you.) that comes out to $2.50 a meal. 

With a new line of “All Natural” entree’s to tempt my taste buds, I opted to pick up a box of “Pumpkin Squash Ravioli”, which by the package picture and descriptive and inviting copy sounded rather appetizing.  Hell, I’m game to try it at least once.

Well lo’ and behold, after an intense morning at work (in which I also had skipped breakfast) I worked up quite an appetite, so one can only imagine how much I was looking forward to having a satisfying meal for lunch.  Well, what I got was far less than I expected.  At first I was mad, but anger gave way to disbelief, and soon disbelief morphed into absurd laughter and frivolity on my part.  So I decided to have a little fun, for the sake of levity, sanity, and of course content for my blog, so I sent Conagra Foods a letter, of course being absurd in my own right and seeing if they would respond.  

Actual Picture of meal taken with phone

Without further ado, I thought I’d share my actual letter to them with you all:

To whom it may concern;

As an occasional consumer of Healthy Choice microwaveable meals, I’d like to register an issue in regards to the ‘Pumpkin Squash Ravioli’ I recently purchased from the Pavillions in my area.

As tempting of a description as ‘pumpkin filled ravioli with a butter-sage sauce, asparagus and butternut squash’ is with the addition of extra virgin olive oil, I can’t help but be disappointed with the overall contents.

On the outside of the package, you can clearly count at least five ravioli, although some of my coworkers swear they can make out a possible sixth upon closer inspection.

When I removed mine from it’s package, I counted a total of three (3), yes, three, far from the pictured representation on the glossy cardboard packaging.

For a man of my size, a somewhat fit 235 lbs, standing 5′ 10″ in Rocksport shoes, three ravioli can hardly be considered a hearty lunch time meal.

One might argue that between the pumpkin filling and accompanying butternut squash that perhaps the fiber content may have been considered ‘filling’, but I assure you, as a born and bred Italian male, it is not. (A picture can be provided as I was able to take one with my phone, Mototoala Droid, that is).

Here’s to hoping that future offerings from Conagra Foods more closely represents the items depicted on the cover, lest you request that I switch brands to something more shallow in nutrition and not nearly as delightful as one expects from the Health Choice brand.

Regards and good health,

-Jayson Olson

It took about a week, but I indeed did get a response.  Unfortunately, it appears Conagra Foods doesn’t have quite a sense of humor about it as I did:

July 7, 2010

Dear Mr. Olson,

Thank you for your email concerning our Healthy Choice® All Natural Entrees Pumpkin Squash Ravioli. We appreciate your purchase, but sincerely apologize for your experience. We stand by the quality of our products, and want you to know that this matter has been taken seriously.

We will also be sending you a replacement coupon via regular mail that is valid for nine months. Please allow 1-2 weeks for receipt.

Thanks again for your feedback. We’re listening!

Sincerely,
XXXX

Consumer Affairs

Er….seems kinda boring doesn’t it?  I wonder about the people that have to put up with bullshit letters or calls like mine on a day to day basis.  What could XXX possibly be making per hour to respond to addled minded complaints like mine.  She probably wishes she were home watching Oprah and dreaming about saving up for the big swap meet coming to town in a few weeks.  I’d really like to think there is a pool of these workers who look forward to crazy ramblings like mine, and that it makes their day by passing it around amongst themselves for a good afternoon laugh.  That’s what I intended anyway, who the hell has the time to bitch about a $2.50 meal?….I do!!!!!  Perhaps we are kindred spirits after all; maybe if we met by accident in real life we’d share a yarn and have a beer at some local watering hole, recanting ridiculous tales that make our lives somewhat passable.

Then again, she may just think I’m an idiotic dick and cursing her minimum wage job as she processes yet another free coupon for tomorrow’s mailing.

That my friends is the mystery of all this.

And I only had to buy 1000 candy bars

It’s been a bit of a stretch since I last rattled off a humorous little true tale.  At least I can say tthat after a few days, this story has indeed become more humorous to me as opposed to my initial disappointment and frustration when it took place a few evening ago.

First, let me give you all a little of the setup, or background.  I have an 18 year old step daughter, whom by all accounts is a very creative individual.  However, that being said, doesn’t always translate into practical street smarts or the comprehension of the obvious.  Often, my wife and and I find ourselves having to explain things to the “n-th” degree.  At times, it really can turn into an exercise in patience and I often ponder if this is a continual test from the creator to that is supposed to teach me a valuable lesson (which I find myself constantly failing BTW), or that He, in all His glory and wisdom has a gets bored on occasion and likes to amuse Himself by playing various Prank’d jokes on us all to see how we will react.

My step-daughter also only works part time.  And when I say part time, I literally mean about 16 hours a week.  She is currently not enrolled in traditional school (she’s attempting to get her GED or diploma equivlency through some ridiculous CA government run program that screams retail all over it).  All you, as the reader, need to know is this translates to my wife and I both working full time anywhere between 45-50 hours each a week, and allows my step-daughter to watch Sponge Bob or Comedy Central marathons at the equivalent of 8 hours day.  Something that will change shortly, by the way.

It would occasionally be nice to come home to maybe …., oh, say…. a prepared meal for the family seeing that we work all day long.  Is that too much to ask?  Is it out of line to think the that the house could be vacuumed, the kitchen floor mopped, or the plants watered occasionally,…..say between commercials, or is that oh soooo busy day of sitting on the couch pondering about getting a drivers license taking up too much valuable time?  Apparently so.

More times that I’d like to admit, either my wife or myself are the ones that come home from a long day at work, only to find ourselves doing the cleaning and making dinner.  Hardly seems fair, but also we need it done correctly and not half-assed, or as my a friend put it the other day, ‘quarter-assed’.

So the other night it was approaching 7pm and I had yet to start dinner (after a ten hour day) and my wife was bowling as she does once a week on a league.  My daughter came to me and inquired about dinner. Ugh, are you kidding me??  Again, and I know this may come off as sounding rude, mean, or not very understanding, but the fact that she was waiting for me yet once again to provide her sustenance after she sat home and did nothing all day long really irked me.  I think she got the initial gist of my facial contortion as she quickly recovered and offered up, ”Would you like me to make dinner for us?”

My jaw just about dropped.  Not only did she offer to make dinner, but she also included me into the mix and not as an afterthought or non-thought as is the usual case.  I said, “That would be nice.  There is some prepackaged fish in the freezer.  Just preheat the oven and pop them in.  I’m going to take a shower and be down in a bit.”, and I watched her scamper back downstairs and heard both the freezer open and oven start.  I thought everything was okay at this point. 

I should also know better by now.

After my shower, I began to traipse downstairs only to smell something slightly burning.  She was sitting on the couch, laptop in hand, exchanging glances between the TV screen and the computer she was inevitably harvesting crops in FarmVille.

I walked into the kitchen and opened the oven.

There were our fish fillets, on a cookie sheet, uncovered or protected, with their toppings having melted and slid off the fish and began to burn and bubble in a pool inside the oven.  I quickly pulled the cookie sheet out to avoid further burning and grabbed the box in which the fillets came.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees,
2. PLACE FISH IN OVEN SAFE DISH
3. COVER
4. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until fish is opaque in color

That’s it folks.  Four points of instruction in our native tongue of English.

Somehow, someway, and don’t even ask me to explain because I can’t and I’m just as left in the dark as you are, my daughter skipped over steps 2 & 3.  She got the oven to 425, and set the timer for 25 minutes, yet somehow was able to miss the part where you place the fish in an oven safe dish and then to cover them.  These instructions, I imagine, were there for the sole purpose to purposely avoid the topping spill over and burning.  When I asked her about this, the blank stare of a deer in head-lights spoke volumes.

I was just barely able to salvage the fillets with only half the toppings.  I then looked about the rest of the kitchen to see what else was being prepared.  Usually with a fish fillet dinner or when someone offers to cook you a dinner, one might expect to see a salad and/or a side dish as well.  A piece of bread may be a topper on a meal such as this.  Sadly, and not really to my surprise, there was nothing else on the menu this evening.  Nope, just over-cooked, dried-out fish on a cookie sheet.

The more I thought about it it that evening the angrier I was getting, but then I had an epiphany the following day.  Maybe my daughter is actually a genius!  Maybe by intentionally screwing up this meal, this is her way of saying “Look old man, maybe you need to cook dinner all the time.  I can’t possibly be bothered by reading instructions and therefor you will be more inclined to start dinner when you get home from work and how dare you interrupt my Facebook time.”  If that is indeed the case, then she is actually brilliant and a well played scheme on her end.

Hmmmm….

The last few days I’ve had a mild case of writers block when it’s come to thinking about a topic to discuss .  Oh, I’ve had a few ideas percolating within the old noggin, mostly about my upcoming few days off, or some great beers I’ve recently had.   However, just as I was about to put it off for yet another day, I realized my place of employment has a rich cavern of stupid gems I can mine from on a regular basis, and today I struck gold!

We have a thing at work called ‘5S’, and the majority of normal folk can’t tell you what all the S’s stand for (Sort, Shine are all I can remember), but it’s an idea developed by the Japanese that has something to do along the lines of making your place of employment a better overall experience.  It has to do with maintaining a clean and safe environment, things should look tidy and put away, everything in order…blah, blah, blah.  In concept it sounds like a decent idea, but in practice and personal experience it’s more of a hassle that only a few people seem to really get off on. 

And by a few people, I mean a minority handful of select kiss-asses who take this concept to an irrational level of eleven.  I swear, it has turned these individuals into the Gestapo of ridiculous policies where a committee of ‘yes men’ all pat themselves on the back for forming an adhoc committee to discuss the obvious.  The problem I have with it is that it takes all the ability of logical problem solving skills and responsibility of the sane workers and places it in the hands of a handful who take forever to rule on what would seem a no-brainer to the rest. 

This committee of five or six has a tour once every three months, armed with a digital camera, clip boards, and frazzled panic and walk around the facilities to point out and document things that need to be cleaned up, repaired, or fixed for safety reasons.  Like I said, 5S seems decent in concept, but now its more of a nuisance than anything else.  The majority of big ticket items were addressed the first few times.  Now I have the feeling they are just making shit up or going overboard to justify their own experience.  It’s as if they ‘have’ to find something on each walkthru now, and if they don’t they either failed or try harder.  It’s gotten nit-picky to epic proportions and eye-roll inducing at worst.  I am convinced they are on a mission to write anything down now just so they can say they found something.  God forbid the company actually passes one of these tours.  It has literally come down to things such as which font is used to mark a door, or how wide a tape marker is….a half inch or a quarter inch these days.

All this leads up to today’s asinine event: The speaker.

Apparently they had a dry run today for the actual walkthru on Wednesday of this week.  In one of our least populated buildings there is a secured area that only a few people have access to and way out of the way for a regular employee to find themselves near.   Now in that secured room which has plenty of open space, there is a single mono speaker sitting on a portable plastic step….in the corner. 

There is nothing special or noteworthy about this speaker other than the fact it looks like it came from Radio Shack back in the late 70’s as it is adorned with some tacky beige tweed fabric.  It doesn’t work, or at least it hasn’t been hooked up to anything in at least three years that I have been with the company, and I’m sure many years before that.  Like I said, it is sitting in a corner doing nothing but collecting dust.

Anyway, even though the ‘committee’ has walked through this area multiple times in the past and this speaker has never caused a problem, stolen any kids lunch money, or made racial epithets, today it has now become a red-ticket, high priority, def-con-one issue.  Why today and not the last dozen times they’ve walked through this room?  Your guess is as good as mine.

So the committee of managers and higher-up muckity-mucks decide to talk amongst themselves and call my boss.  My boss in turns talks with another supervisor to discuss who owns the speaker, what is it doing now, what was it’s original purpose, and what can the company do about it before Wednesday.  Both my boss and supervisor then contact yours truly to understand and glean information from me on the history and current dossier of the six inch woofer.  I explain that is has been there for longer than I have been employed here, that it is not hooked up nor has been for at least three years and that no one knows who is responsible for it judging from the quarter inch of dust on it.  I simply reply, “Throw it out.”

I am instead met with “Well, we have to follow procedures.” and “We have to make some calls.” and more back and forth banter between them seemingly goes on for much longer than a govermental selection and vetting process of a Supreme Court nominee. 

Finally, when it is all said and done, they open an electronic ticket for me in our work process flow system to have me dispose of the speaker.  This equates to me printing out a ticket, walking down to the building, grabbing the speaker, throwing it in the trash, walking back, and then closing out the ticket.  My manual labor of throwing the speaker out was all of 30 seconds….the paperwork I had to acknowledge and then sign afterwards about ten minutes worth.

Now why none of the Muckity-mucks couldn’t just throw it out themselves in the beginning and just be done with it?  Why make multiple phone calls to various people to discuss the fate of a speaker that is clear close to forty years old and doing nothing but holding down a non-moving step ladder?  Why open a ticket and assign it to me for something this ludicrous?  Who the hell knows other than to justify their won existence.  I mean why bother with trying to improve employee moral, or invest in new equipment to make our jobs easier, or strategizing about how to improve our overall standing in the marketplace….there are paperclips out of place somewhere and mismatching paper cups in the cafeteria, and by golly, we’re going to find them.

Eyeballing - Sport of the mentally challenged.

There is apparantly a new trend that has orginated somewhere in the U.K. amongst their crooked toothed teens, and of course not to be outdone, we here in the states seem to have spawned our own home grown collection of idiotic teens.

I came across this news story today about a new fad termed “Eyeballing.”:

Vodka eyeballing. It’s the latest drinking fad on YouTube, and it could cause blindness.

Hundreds of online videos that originated in the U.K. show teens pouring vodka directly into their eyes, straight from the bottle. The videos are getting hundreds of thousands of hits.

Substance abuse expert Mike Gimbel claims kids aren’t eyeballing to get drunk faster, but do it when the effects of alcohol have already set in and impaired their judgment. Eyeballing is more of a prank than a way to become more intoxicated.

“They’re not doing it to get more drunk, they’re doing it as part of a fad. ‘I dare you to do this,’” Gimbel said.

Robert Stutman, president of the Maryland Optometric Association, said eyeballing can be very damaging to the eyes. Vodka is 40 to 50 percent alcohol and can burn and scar the cornea.

“It probably could [cause blindness] if it caused severe enough scarring of the cornea,” Stutman said.

Personally, while I understand the flawed concept of trying to get buzzed quicker, I just cannot imagine anybody in their right mind thinking that pouring alcohol directly into their eyes is gonna turn out good in any form.  For one, you’re just wasting your good booze (or not so good depending on what you have on hand).  How goofy do you look by pouring a shot or more in your eye when 99%+ is just going to spill down your face and into your shirt.  Plus, you can’t taste it, so what’s the point?

The mindset is that you can introduce alcohol quicker into the bloodstream by allowing capillaries close to to the surface of the skin to absorb alcohol directly, therefor bypassing the conventional method of swallowing alcohol down the gullet into the stomach where it is to be processed and then waiting for the intended effects as the alcohol has to travel back upwards to the brain.

I for one knew of this concept back when I was a teen myself, but I also know that pouring alcohol into certain tissues causes a horrific burn.  Just watch any old western movie where they use a bottle of whisky to sterilize a gunshot or knife wound.  Hell, I can’t recall one injured cowboy that either didn’t flinch from the pain or got drunk via this shotgun medical practice. 

That being said, I recall from my youth that in biology classes I once took that the area just under the tongue that attaches to your lower jaw is chock full of capillaries and the ’tissue’ is relatively thin.  I also know that there are a lot of medications that are termed ’sub-lingual’, that is they are intended to be absorbed quickly by the body when placing drops under the tongue.  Back in the day, I used to take a good swig of a beverage and hold it under my own tongue for a brief period of time before swallowing.  I figured even back then that the alcohol could be introduced to my bloodstream much quicker this way, and since its proximation to the brain was relatively closer than my stomach, that I would get buzzed slightly faster.

Now, while I am not advocating or endorsing my own practices, it just makes a helluva lot more sense than dumping a bottle in my eye likes it Visine.

My friend Brian has been on a roll lately of asking thought provoking questions on his Facebook account.  You know, the type of questions that seems easy to answer off the cuff, but if you were to sit back and think about it for a few moments, actually prove harder than you think. 

I suppose at some level they are meant to be thought provoking and somewhat insightful to who you are at your core.  You may even surprise yourself with how many times you change your own answers and the reasoning behind them.  Now if you are really honest, ask yourself if your answers are truly heartfelt, in the moment, or meant to appeal to an audience that you wish either not offend or you’re trying to impress.

One of his recent questions may not be that original, but still, I like it and take on the challenge to answer it.

“If you could take three people out to dinner for a night of conversation, who would they be…and why?”

Well, the easy answers are always Jesus and maybe a close relative, and I’d be lying if the easy ones didn’t come to my own mind too.  But seeing that someday I will hopefully be in the presence of Christ himself, I figure I have all eternity at that point to chat Him up over a pint of heavenly brew.  I also quickly discounted a lot or recent relatives and celebrity types, seeing that most are phony (the celebs, not my family mind you) to begin with, and what could I possibly have anything to talk about with Kim Kardashian or Snooky (although ‘The Situation’ may be a bit funny at first).

1) The first one is somewhat easy for me.  I think I’d like to meet Abraham Lincoln.  It goes so beyond his iconic beard, stove top hat, and beard.  I truly am interested on his thought of politics back in the day.  Many consider him the grandfather of Conservatism, and whether that is true or not, the idea of talking to the man who epitomized the idea of the American dream (being born in a log cabin, educating himself, hard worker, etc.).  I would love t hear his thoughts on politics today, to be around someone who was known to be so charismatic, genuine, and honest.  I’d be spellbound listening to him speak on deciding to go to war with the south, knowing that the future of America as we know it today was in his hands.  How he really felt about brother versus brother as the war report rolled in and the subsequent decisions.  To hear his thoughts on slavery and race relations today, guided from his belief in God and just causation.  Yeah, I’d like to hear about his adventures as a kid, hunting bears, growing up in Illinois, being on the cusp of technological breakthroughs at the time.  I think Abe would be really interesting to share a few shots of whisky with, maybe a good old fashioned fried chicken dinner with blueberry pie for dessert.

The seond one get s a bit tougher.  My first thoughts were George Lucas (because of my love for Star Wars) or maybe William Shatner (KHANNNN!!!!).  Then I began thinking of the sciences and brilliant minds.  Stephen Hawking, Einstein, and Edison were just some of the names that popped in my head.  I started working backwards in time as well, taking into account various era’s in recorded history, world locals, and contributions to society.  I’m not sure the next name is my ultimate second pick, but I keep going back to him based on not only his contributions to science, but to the arts as well.

2) Leonardo da Vinci.  Inventor extraordinaire.  Painter of the ‘Last Supper’.  Musician, sculptor, engineer, mathematician, geologist, botanist, writer, cartographer, scientist, architect, anatomist, etc.  He was like the McGyver of the 16th century.  Absolutely brilliant for his time, logical, and probably the most talented mortal person who has ever lived thus far.  To hear him talk about Rome and the ancient world, to know how he even approaches the things he thinks about.  To see him paint one minute, dissect a human being for science the next, to chart the stars in the evening, and to contemplate machines that would someday be know as the helicopter centuries before it was even possible.  I imagine he’d have a great way of telling stories in ways we couldn’t normally think of.  I’m sure Leonardo knows his wine and operas and would be the superhuman sage at my dinner table.  He is utterly fascinating.  I thinking learning culture from him would be interesting to say the least.

The third is very tough.  Since I have two people that primarily cover the intellectual stuff such as politics, philosophy and various sciences, I need someone to balance this all out.  I need some one for a little levity, a bit of comic relief, but also a man’s man who walks the line of ‘bad boy’ but with charm.  Perhaps a comedian?  A cartoonist? An entertainer?

I don’t consider my third guest a throw-away guest.  I have so many choices in my head I could easily find myself enthralled with to one degree or another, but I keep coming back to one name in particular.

3) Dean Martin.  Part of the original Rat Pack, he just embodies everything suave and ‘cool’ to me.  A great entertainer with a quick wit and a great sense of humor.  His crooning and distinct voice coupled with his charming charisma from the hip era of the late 50’s to early 60’s.  Sharp dresser and laid back.  It would seem to me he would have thousands personal of stories to tell, all of them just as interesting as the last.  The kind of guy I’d like to go to Vegas with and hang out at the pool, or have a stiff whisky drink with at some club, or have as a best man or godfather to your child.  Seems like he’d be a “guy’s – guy” and a loyal friend through thick and thin, always looking at the lighter side of things and a being able to turn any situation into a party.

This wasn’t an easy decision, all three of them to be exact, and who knows….if you were to ask me the same question in 6 months or six years, perhaps my picks would change, but for now its a start.  I’d be interested to hear your three picks.

I do not proclaim to be the neatest or tidiest person in the world.  I don’t lose sleep over an errant jacket not hung up or a loose leaf magazine hanging out on the coffee table, but on rare occasion I reach my very own breaking point where I just can’t take the junk collection anymore.  I often think that I could give Sanford & Son a run for their money, and I tend to skim past the TV show ‘Hoarders’ for fear of recognizing a camera crew standing outside my own house. 

In reality, I’m really not that bad.  However, I do tend to hand on to some things much longer than I think I need to.  And sometimes it’s not even a conscious thing.  Often I place something down or put it away only to really forget about it until it is discovered either months or years later.  And I’m not the only guilty party in my household either.  My wife and step-daughter have their own unique collections to excess, however, whereas my wife will cling on to some useful objects, my daughter retains broken or gaudy junk rather than throwing it out.  Unfortunately, it’s her bedroom floor that tends to be the catchall of this stuff, and worse yet, in my mind that floor is a part of ‘my’ house, ‘ergo’ it’s also my junk by proxy.

Some people, (mostly the fairer sex I presume) get an itch for Spring cleaning, and can can spend an hour here and there culling a closest of yesterday’s fashions, maybe some expired medications, and newspaper articles or magaizines one will never read again (if they even read it in the first place).  I on the other hand get the urge for a purge about twice a year, and it is always amazing to me how much I can indeed clear out.  It’s also amazing that it seems every six months or so we as a family have collectively filled that empty void again with more useless crap.

The job of cleaning house is both time consuming and laborious, but I always feel a great sense of accomplishment and even

Er...not our house, but you get the idea.

liberation thereafter.  To look at the large 50 gallon trash cans in front of my house on garbage day and know that they are full of stuff I have ‘let go’ gives me a sense of self-satisfaction and I feel my overall house is indeed lighter.  I often think if we had to move one day, that’s 50 gallons worth of stuff’ I don’t have to pack.

I am getting much better at my collections though and what I retain.  I used to keep every single book I ever read, thinking someday I may want to read them again, or may need to pull them out for some trivial information as if I would be just a life-line away from “Who wants to be a millionaire?” contestant.  At one point I had every single magazine issue of Wizard (the guide to comics) from debut issue number 1 though 100.  I have since let go of them and tossed them all, and though it pained me at the time, I have never really missed them since.  My used paperback books?…I know sell them on Amazon.com or donate to the library.

I have a harder time with clothes.  I have shirts dating back to the late 90’s and mid 90’s I just don’t have the heart to ditch, thinking that one day I may fit back into them, or getting rid of a stained t-shirt is sacrilege.  Oh, my wife laughs and mocks me, but she is not better.  If you were to look at her closest she has 50+ pairs of varying shoes in which she’ll be the first to admit she only really wears about 5 pair. 

Same with her hair care products.  In our shower you can count my bottles on one hand, probably 3 fingers: shampoo, conditioner, and some body scrub.  My wife on the other had never has anything less than 5 bottles of shampoo, perhaps 6 bottles of conditioner.  And that’s just the shower folks.  If we look at her vanity, there are easily multiple bottles or canisters of hair sprays, straighteners, body enhancers, stuff to repair split ends or control fizz.  She also has a hard time getting rid of clothing tags.  Whereas I may have a collection of dated shirts, I often find small cardboard tags and the little vinyl attachment spruces all about the house.  Sometimes they will be there for days if not weeks on end until I throw them out myself.

So why the sudden interest in a home cleansing?  Well, my wife is out on business this week, meaning there is no one to watch over my efforts and to tell me what stays and what goes.  My daughter is also gone, and I have free reign to pitch her stuff as well.  I always try and do this when they are not there because it works.  There is no one in my way, no distractions, no second guessing, no arguments.  I look at stuff and make a snap judgement call….if it looks like it hasn’t been used in a year, or looks like it was forgotten, then it’s out.  To this day, I have done quite a few ‘purges’ and not once has my wife come back to me and said “Hey, do you recall that piece of wood decoration we got from the neighbor five years ago I put in a box in the garage?  I need it now.”

Everything on the table...$.50

This round actually got started this weekend.  See, I was looking for some acetate covers for my cell phone I purchased a few months back.  They cost me all of $5 and I misplaced them.  So instead of going back to the store to buy new ones, I began a quest to locate them in our house.  Three hours into my non-stop spelunking sojourn, I had nary an idea where they were, but I did discover bank statements from 2002 (mind you, it is 2010), unopened VHS movies (even though we have a Blu-ray player), about 20 different beer bottle openers we get from various trade shows, and of course directions for appliances we no longer even own.  I spent most of Sunday night just shredding documents that serve no purpose to us today and if I wasn’t looking so hard for my cell phone protector covers these envelops of yesteryear would sit even longer in dust covered stasis.

I know for a fact I have magazines dating back six months still in their protective mylar mailing jackets I have never opened, and I’m sure I can find more questionable gems of crap in my daughters room.  So it looks like tomorrow there will be an excorcism taking place at my house.  I will be staying home, Zune player in back pocket, as I go room to room, drawer by drawer throwing out crap I have deemed crap.  Because if I don’t, I know no one else will. 

As a tease this morning, I opened a drawer in the kitchen and discovered mardi-gras style beads that were accumulated from some software-centric trade show a few years back.  There is no reason to have them.  I have never seen my wife wear these chipped plastic baubles since she unpacked them from her suitcase more than two years ago.  I doubt there will ever be a day or event when wearing beads that say ‘Big Dog inventory software 2008′ will creep back into our lives, or the numerous take-out menus I have collected from fast food joint that don’t even exist anymore will be paramount to our existance.

My neighbor Chip (not his real name) has a genuine soul.  Sometimes a bit rough around the edge’s, once you get to know him, he’s just a tattooed teddy bear.  I’ve known him for almost six years now, and he’s just as interesting now as he was on my skeptical first impression.  We’ve talked about doing a podcast together, and it’s juts a matter of scheduling to get him in to sit down.

He enjoys his music, he family, surfing, good conversation, skateboarding, and a mean drink.  I think his drink of choice would be beer followed closely with a tall screwdriver (orange juice and vodka).  We’ve been to bars together, backyard parties, neighborhood BBQ’s, and he always brings a special brand of entertainment, whether he means it or not.

Once you get past the colorful language and initial intimidation factors, you’ll recognize that you want Chip to be your friend.  He’s solid, through and through, very genuine and means what he says.  Granted he’s had a colorful history, his stories of years past raising hell will captivate just about anyone.  But in time, I suppose we all slow down.  His priorities is that of his family first, and to be an excellent neighbor, always willing to lend a helping hand.

However, as I alluded to prior, he can be quite entertaining, especially when libations are involved.  Chip got the nickname ‘Ozzy’, (a nickname I coined for him and take full credit for) one evening after a raucous round of imbibing around the fire that was blazing in the portable pit in my driveway a few years back.  The neighbors had all come down as we collect occasionally on a Friday night after work.  Chip was in rare form (or perhaps not so rare if I think about it) hitting the sauce a lit harder than usual.  Maybe it was just an empty stomach, or the way my wife tends to pour drinks, but as the night wore on, Chip’s speech became more and more incomprehensible to the point where it literally sounds like mumbling from a mouth full of greased up marbles. 

Chip walking home

At one point he tried to walk home down the street, a total of 50 yards or so and it seemed to take all of 15 minutes.  We watched him walk away, trying ever so hard to walk a straight line from point A to point B, his home, however, it looked more like a dashed line that Billy from Family Circus would take.  There were multiple false starts and finishes, bobbing and weaving to the left and then to the right.  Zigs and zags aplenty as we all watched in marvel and he continued to mumble on and on to himself in the quiet of the night. 

It’s as if he were channeling Ozzy Osbourne himself.  A train wreck in comedy that you just cannot seem to take your eyes off of.  And thus when I muttered something in reference to his behavior and that of Ozzy, a nicknamed legend was born.

Not to long ago, the boys had decided to go out for hot wings and a few brews so we all hopped in my car to pick up my friend Jon.  Jon is in the business of IP based security systems, and thus has a few camera’s strategically placed around his house that are always active.  In the videos below, you’ll see a sober Chip discovering one of the camera’s and letting his playful side come out.  How often to get to witness a man in his mid 40’s let down his guard and interact like a little kid making faces and comedic gestures to the camera?

Video #1 (Doesn’t he look like Andy Capp?):

Video #2 captured shortly thereafter: